Pretty much what LNER station staff said to me on Newark Northgate station, summer 2018
Thursday 5th February 2026
Now I don't want you thinking BRAPA is predictable but these were identical beginnings to my December 2022 'Notts Mop-up', it went something like this .......
York-Newark Northgate train inc. Arctic Coffee and croissant
Resist urge for widdle on platform in full view of angry LNER staff
Speed walk across to Newark Castle station in the grimmest of conditions
Find that my train is a couple of minutes delayed anyway so rushing was pointless
Hop off at Carlton, despite having bought a ticket to Nott'm cos it is useful for the first two pubs
Walk through the car park of Fox & Hounds pub and wonder if it does real ale
Panic because the pavement is non existent so attempt a dangerous road crossing
Immediately realise pavement has reappeared and I should've just held my nerve and hung on.
I swing a right to take me away from Carlton and into Gedling. That's the first deviation from 2022. Notts suburbs. They'll never make sense.
My first pub opens at 11:30am to get me off to a good start (NB : Warwickshire you Saturday 12 noon losers) ......
Willowbrook, Gedling : Nottingham (3248 / 6089) is giving 'former club cuckooed by Castle Rock to make it accessible to pub-tickers, stress free'. Despite a warm welcome from the barmaid, it is a touch gloomy on this wet Thursday morning. A Shania Twain 'best of' doesn't change that. Chocolate, grey and sage interior. A coughing old gent sat atop a posing stool shivering over two bottles of Peroni, coat still on. Three beaten up old sofa's represent the only low seating. Restauranty further back. In an annexe behind some glass, a group of old dears are having a meeting. One escapes for a coffee. She's called Anne. She once dated our coughing Peroni bloke. Anne-Ex(e). Sorry, that was dreadful. I tell you what isn't dreadful, the beer. Castle Rock Preservation. Full and meaty. Never had it before. But Untappd tells me the rest of the world has. That's it.
I shelter with a cola-cube vaping guy, the bus eight minutes delayed, of course it is. Should've set off walking. Too late now.
En route, a pre-emptive 'Spoons. Well, it'd be wrong not to with my recent efforts in this direction.
They call it the Woodthorpe Top, and it was the first of three non GBG 'Spoons I'd enjoy a half in today. I guess Nottingham's plethora of decent ale outlets stop Wetherspoons getting a look in , as I'd rate them all 'above average'. As was Sherwood's rare entry last year. This is next door to the sometime GBG entry 'Bread & Bitter'. The Ashover was good and the carpet made me want to forage for mushrooms in twiggy woodland. Warm, and busy.
I walk the rest of the way to pub two, further than I thought but couldn't justify getting back on the bus. I really have been lazy re. physical exertion this winter, and my tummy shows it. Hoping warmer spring weather will give me encouragement I need to get more active.
Stick this in your Inventory, well it already is. Only rated two stars, so don't expect Leon Foster to have counted it on his heritage spreadsheet, Vale, Woodthorpe : Nottingham (3249 / 6090) has exciting art deco curves and sexy wood panelling. It has an unpretentious lounge-like hubbub, a few separate rooms behind frosty glass doors, and is solely inhabited by old ladies with dentures sucking down non-chewables like cheesy mash and very minced beef. The barmaid informs me Elsie Mo is also on, out of view, so I go for a pint of that. She's refreshingly down-to-earth, the beer splutters but after a patient five minute wait involving several people asking me what I'm doing at the bar, she returns with a foamy pint of it, and good stuff. I sit in the window you can see above, once the two man loitering John Virgo tribute act shove off, just far enough away from the lunchees, and that's another pub ticked off.
Time to take a bus south into Nottingham centre, and with tick three not opening until 3, I hop off whilst I'm still in those northerly badlands to tick a second pre-emptive 'Spoons which looks like an NHS clinic, and did actually used to be a hospital for newborns, including a guy on my TwXtter who seems traumatised that he was born in a now-Spoons.
Again, I'm impressed. Gooseberry Bush serves a cracking Bradfield Farmers Pale which has a bit more personality than the Blonde in 2026, I shared a table with an angry crushed up can of Monster left by a bloke called Ashley, found the carpet a rather mystifying 6.5/10, and went to look for a tram.
It is only in the past couple of years that I've started to appreciate Nottingham's charms, a real slow burner of a city like sticking on a Americana album on a Sunday evening whilst watching Antiques Roadshow on mute with a Ploughman's and cup of mint green tea.
It has no right to have a tram service, but tram service it has. And it whizzes me quick smart from the Uni to Gregory Street, passing an army of post-school kids as 3pm ticks around .....
The green bricked frontage heralds the strongest pub so far, Johnson Arms, Lenton : Nottingham (3250 / 6091) stinks of strong ale, that reassuring smell you seem to find in the best pubs across the East Midlands, but nowhere else. Lanyard wearing unwashed students attempt some humour, which the barman finds funnier than me. Despite not being a student, or an NHS worker, so not entitled to any sort of discount, I don't feel marginalised which would be easy in a lesser pub. Even with a disconsolate 6/10 carpet proving a missed opportunity, the red ceiling, general warmth and normal seating make this a pleasant place to sit. Oligo Nunk by Hollowstone seemed a worryingly obscure beer choice, but it was darn enjoyable. 'The craft arm of Shipstones' a kind beer expert called Danny tells me, just in case you find that sort of thing interesting.
Pub four doesn't open until 5 (this was getting confusing now the beer was kicking in!) but look at this, it is on the same train line as Beeston, and Beeston is on the same tram line I'd arrived on at Gregory Street. A total fluke, but I love it when a plan comes together!
'Spoons three whilst I'm waiting? Of course, although Beeston has such a strong settled GBG suite that it is hard to imagine them banging the 'Spoons in, even though again I'd rate it highly.
Last Post is the name, someone's left a tray of dips so I give them a sniff, deem them 'safe', and sneakily dip my bite sized Kievs (sorry, Kyivs) in when the staff aren't around! It's quite Wild West. Open, airy. Full of blokes who walk like John Wayne and have moustache's from 1870's New Mexico. As a fan of Westerns, I approve. And a creakier staircase you won't hear all year. Carpet an intruiging 8.
5pm is approaching so time to catch the train, always annoys me how far Beeston station is from the town centre but it isn't exactly Tring levels, not even Bromsgrove, so I should stop moaning.
Someone once told me it was shite, but it was more than alright on this evidence. As Micros go, had a lot more about it than any of those Lancs ones last Saturday. Is it just me or is Lancashire particularly bad at Micropub interiors? Bird Hide, Attenborough (3251 / 6092) is a (blue) monkey off my back in some respects .... my only Notts 'miss' of the 2024 GBG, and then it got dropped in '25. It has the most amazing warm blowy overhead extractor fan (the cold wet windy day had been unrelenting), which I immediately comment on to mine host and the lovely local bloke with voice of Sean Dyche further back, both really friendly chaps. That horizontal wood panelling really does evoke 'Blacktoft Sands mid nineties', as I was a part-time teenage Twitcher before I discovered Isla Fisher was a more exciting type of bird to observe. The beer is Twist n Stout by Lenton Lane. Silky. Like Kristy Wright. I've had it before, and it is my intention to have it again, so there! No carpet but the cushions were an easy 8/10.
Even more accidental transport planning joy followed. This Attenborough train goes directly through to Newark, so no need to change at Nottingham. Again a happy fluke.
With retrospect, I should've guessed that this lucky Thursday would be the gateway to an unlucky Saturday, which I'll tell you about on Wednesday. BRAPA yin and yang. Happens all the time.
One pub to go then. My first tick here in many a year (thank god, I'm still worried about being arrested / turfed out of Northgate station for the pissing incident of 2018 .... even though I have matured since then, obvs).
Didn't look like much, but the boom boom boom of music (not the Outhere Brothers or Vengaboys) and young smokers blocking the entrance were the gateway to a bona fide hidden modern gem. Loose Cannon, Newark (3252 / 6093). First thing I see is a newspaper rack. Always a sign of pub quality. Then a pool table or two. Not unlike Warsop's Black Market Venue but with the benefit of an evening visit and folk who weren't exclusively battle weary Mansfield Town fans. Felt a good healthy example of putting a modern twist of proper old fashioned pub values. It's how they'll survive. Not often you see so many young people getting pissed on a wet Thursday evening these days is it? My first Bass sighting of 2026, served by a very chill dreadlock dude which made me wanna recall Kasey Palmer from his Luton loan. The Bass drinks very nicely indeed, as the bass on the speakers continues to boom and shake the room (not the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff). Ivor Panda gets a couple of nice comments, it's that kinda place where a fluffy panda gets respect.
Terrified of standing on Northgate station alone for more than 5 mins for fear of what might happen, I popped into the Fox & Crown for a swift half of typically hazy Pentrich and a good reminder of what a great pub it is.
So, a high quality day throughout really, and you don't always get to say that at 72% GBG completion in counties you feel you've done to death. I often (half jokingly, but only half) refer to Notts as the poor relation to Derbyshire, but it still must be amongst the stronger GBG pub counties.
See you tomorrow for a bit of Atherstone power outage pain.
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